Find Me At Screen Rant

Friday, July 27, 2018

Mission: Impossible - Fallout

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - FALLOUT

** SPOILERS **

"Hope is not a strategy," August Walker (Henry Cavill) says to Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise). Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) quips back, "You must be new." Indeed, if you think about it, we never really see Ethan Hunt eat or drink, so he must be fueled purely by hope as he does impossible things to save the world.

In the relentlessly entertaining Mission: Impossible - Fallout (the 6th Mission in 22 years), Ethan is pushed to his absolute limits as he and the IMF, consisting of the hilarious Benji (Simon Pegg) and the ever-loyal Luther (Ving Rhames) - race around the world to stop two nuclear weapons from killing millions of innocent people. The genius of Fallout, directed once more by Christopher McQuarrie, is in how all of the dangers the IMF has ever faced has been balled up into the personal guilt of Ethan Hunt. He's responsible for all of us, and he knows it. "I'll figure it out!" is Ethan's response every time the IMF asks him what to do, though by then, Ethan has already taken off to perform some type of aerobatic insanity. Bless him, Ethan will go to absolutely any lengths to save us, because that's simply what Ethan Hunt does.

The last three Missions have been a more tightly-woven narrative than the original trilogy from 1996-2006. 2011's Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol introduced the Syndicate, a rogue nation of former government operatives led by an anarchist named Solomon Lane (Sean Harris). Ethan and the IMF captured Lane in Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, but two years later, the remnants of the Syndicate have reorganized into a new terrorist network called the Apostles. They want their old leader back and they'll detonate three nukes to get him. Of course, the IMF mobilizes to stop them, this time led by Secretary Hunley (Alec Baldwin). Hunley was the IMF's greatest critic until he saw Ethan in action in Rogue Nation; like anyone who gets to see what Ethan Hunt can do, Hunley was instantly converted. Indeed, Hunley delivered an astonishing pro-Ethan speech in Rogue Nation where he called Mr. Hunt "the living manifestation of destiny." Now's he's Team Ethan all the way. However, the IMF always has to be disavowed in some way. New CIA head Angela Bassett thinks the IMF are a bunch of "grown men in Halloween masks" and sends her own man to oversee Ethan, August Walker. If Walker could twirl his infamous mustache, he would have.

The action in Fallout is typical for Mission: Impossible, which is to say it's deliriously breathtaking. With the 56-year-old Cruise once more performing the majority of his own stunts, Ethan soars higher and takes more risks than ever. Ethan and Walker HALO jump 25,000 feet into Paris just to crash a party where the mysterious Apostle leader named "John Lark" is set to meet a broker called the White Widow (the fetching Vanessa Kirby). If you think about it, was the HALO jump even necessary? It's Paris, not North Korea - there are a dozen safer ways to enter the City of Lights. Nevertheless, that sets the stage for a brutal men's room brawl and an incredible motorcycle and car chase sequence all over Paris as Ethan evades the police after capturing Solomon Lane yet again. Ethan then parkours and runs across the rooftops of London chasing after Walker, who is revealed to be the real John Lark, before it all culminates in an absolutely spectacular helicopter chase that concludes with a fight on a Kashmir mountaintop where Ethan is literally dangling off the mountain by his fingertips.

For her part, Kirby delivers a speech about her mother Max, which means she must be the daughter of the original broker of information Ethan encountered in his first Mission in 1996. And the White Widow is powerfully attracted to Ethan, so like mother, like daughter. Also attracted to Ethan is MI-6 agent Ilsa Faust, who was Ethan's partner and foil in Rogue Nation. Ilsa joins the IMF at last, though not after betraying Ethan again, which he naturally forgives because he knows she has "reasons." That's the spy game for you. The best callback of all, however, is the return of Ethan's wife Julia (Michelle Monaghan), who has been on the run for her own safety since Mission: Impossible III. She's a doctor without borders now, married to Wes Bentley of all people, but when Ethan comes back into her life once again, she knows it's because the world is at stake. She gets him. "I like her," Ilsa realizes, and we agree. Even while four action set pieces are going on at once, George Lucas-style, in one of the best roller coaster third acts ever in an action movie, we're stunned at the emotional punch Julia and Ethan's reunion packs.

Poor Ethan apologizes eight times in Fallout: once to a French police woman who finds herself in the wrong place in the wrong time, once to Alec Baldwin, twice when he runs into a funeral in a cathedral while being chased by the Apostles, and four times to Julia herself. But as Julia notes, Ethan has nothing to be sorry for. Ethan's guilt over the way his adventures have upended his wife's life is expunged and finally, he's free of the secret torment he harbors - the same torment Solomon Lane uses against him in his nightmares. Of course, Ethan Hunt can't ever stop trying to save the world, and the world desperately needs him. But by the end, with Ilsa and the IMF, his team - no, his friends - rallied around him in the hospital after he put it all on the line once more, we regard Ethan with the same admiration that they do. Rest up, Mr. Hunt, and get back out there. The world needs you in Mission: Impossible 7.